Chapter 7: A Sister’s Terms
Nobody spoke for several seconds.
The photograph lay on Ms. Patel’s table beneath the soft white glare of the conference-room lights. Elena’s handwriting faced up. If Luca comes, Silas wins.
Luca stared at the words as if he could make them mean something else.
“I need to find her,” he said.
“I know,” I replied. “But if you go looking, she may disappear again.”
His eyes lifted to mine. “She’s my sister.”
“And that’s exactly why she might be afraid you’ll come.”
The words landed harder than I intended. Luca’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t argue. He looked back at the photograph, at the young woman he’d been told was dead.
Ms. Patel slid the evidence log closer to herself.
“Whatever we do next, we don’t use the photograph to track her,” she said. “We don’t contact her directly, and we don’t ask anyone to find her. This is evidence, not permission.”
Luca’s hands had stopped trembling. The rest of him seemed held rigid by the effort.
“I can make one call,” he said. “Find out if she’s alive.”
“No,” I said.
He turned toward me.
“Not because you don’t care,” I continued. “Because she specifically wrote that your coming would help Silas. If she’s alive, she got this far by deciding who could reach her. You don’t get to take that decision away because you’re scared.”
“I’m not asking to take anything away.”
“Then let her decide whether she wants to hear from you.”
The room went quiet again. Gabriel stood near the door, his shoulders hunched. He had already admitted he’d moved Elena once without verifying Luca’s approval, and kept a box Silas had ordered destroyed. Maybe he knew better than anyone that good intentions could still put someone in danger.
Luca looked at Ms. Patel.
“If there’s a way to send a message without revealing where she is, can you arrange it?”
“I can ask a neutral intermediary to forward one,” she said. “I can’t promise there will be an answer. And I won’t tell you anything about her location unless she chooses to share it.”
“I understand.”
I wasn’t sure he did. Understanding a boundary and wanting to obey it were different things.
Marjorie Bell, seated beside the evidence table, folded her hands. She’d been quiet since the photograph came out of the box.
“I may know someone who can pass a message,” she said. “A lawyer I worked with on an archive project. She has handled confidential referrals before. I don’t know whether she has any connection to Elena, and I won’t ask her to find out where Elena is.”
“Can you ask if she’ll forward a note?” Ms. Patel said.
“I can.”
Luca glanced toward the photograph. “What would the note say?”
“That you saw the picture,” I said. “That you won’t come looking for her. That she can decide whether to respond.”
His mouth tightened at the last part.
“Anything else would make it about what you need,” I added. “Not what she wants.”
He held my gaze for a moment, then nodded.
“Write it.”
Ms. Patel took out a blank sheet and drafted the message with Luca’s input. It was short. He said he had seen the photograph and believed she was alive. He said he would not search for her or approach her without permission. He said he was willing to answer questions, but she owed him no meeting, no explanation, and no forgiveness.
He stopped at that last sentence and read it twice.
“Is that enough?” he asked.
“It’s a start,” I said.
Marjorie made the call from the hallway. She didn’t use Luca’s phone or give his name to anyone who didn’t need it. Ms. Patel stayed with the evidence, and I kept my own phone in my hand. No one asked me to wait somewhere else. No one told me what I should do next.
The first reply came nearly an hour later, through Marjorie’s lawyer contact. A woman was willing to forward the note to someone who might be able to reach Elena. She could not say when—or whether—there would be an answer.
Luca read the message over Ms. Patel’s shoulder.
“Then we wait,” he said.
“We do,” I replied.
Waiting was an activity I understood. In the emergency department, it meant monitoring the monitor, checking the clock, and watching for small changes that mattered more than anyone wanted them to. In that conference room, it meant watching Luca try not to turn his fear into an order.
I got coffee from the lobby and drank half of it. It tasted like burnt cardboard, but it was hot. My phone battery had dropped to six percent. I turned down the brightness and stopped opening the rideshare app, as if that might somehow save my entire remaining charge.
When Luca noticed my hands shaking, he glanced at the untouched food on the table.
“Have you eaten?” he asked.
I looked at him.
“Don’t make the orange juice a personality trait.”
“I was asking.”
“I know. I ate a sandwich.”
It wasn’t a great sandwich, and I’d had it hours ago, but it was true enough to quiet him.
Marjorie’s next call came from the same lawyer. This time, she put it on speaker only after Ms. Patel confirmed that the caller agreed.
The woman’s voice was careful and low. She said Elena had received Luca’s note. She would not confirm where Elena was. She would not answer questions about the past through an intermediary.
Then she gave Elena’s conditions.
Luca could come alone. No guards, no driver waiting outside, no one from his family. Nina had to remain free to leave at any time. Elena would decide how long the meeting lasted and what they discussed. If Luca couldn’t accept those terms, there would be no meeting.
Luca closed his eyes briefly.
“I can come alone,” he said.
“Alone means no Gabriel?” the woman asked.
“Yes.”
Gabriel shifted near the door but didn’t speak.
“And no one follows me?”
“No one,” Luca said.
The caller paused, waiting.
I set down my coffee. “If I’m expected to be there, it needs to be somewhere public. And Ms. Patel needs to witness the conversation.”
Luca looked at me, but I kept my attention on the phone.
“Ms. Patel represents me,” I said. “She doesn’t represent Luca or Elena. I want her there to make sure I can leave without an argument and nobody starts turning this into a private negotiation.”
“I’ll relay that,” the woman said.
The call ended.
Luca stood and walked to the window. Outside, a city bus crawled through the snow, its interior lights bright against the gray morning. He looked as if every instinct he had was telling him to act—and as if, for once, he was trying to let the person most affected set the pace.
“You can still say no,” I told him.
“I know.”
“I mean it. If the place feels wrong, or if you change your mind, we don’t go.”
“If Elena accepts your conditions, I’ll follow them.”
“That’s not the same as following her conditions.”
He turned from the window.
“No guards. No family. You can leave. She decides when we’re done. What else can I do?”
“Show up as her brother, not the man who runs the room.”
For a beat, his face went blank. Then he gave a small, humorless nod.
“I don’t know if I remember how.”
“That’s not her problem to solve.”
“No,” he said. “It isn’t.”
Ms. Patel stepped aside to take a call. She listened without interrupting, then glanced through the glass partition at Gabriel, who had been checking his phone.
“Is everything all right?” I asked when she ended the call.
“Not sure yet. One of the drivers I hired to take documents to the secure storage office has spotted two cars behind Gabriel. He believes the men in them are connected to Silas.”
Gabriel’s head came up. “Where?”
“On your route,” Ms. Patel said. “He hasn’t given the destination over an open line.”
Luca moved toward the door.
“Don’t,” I said.
He stopped.
“If someone is following Gabriel, you charging out after him won’t make the situation safer.”
“I wasn’t going to—”
“You were going to do something. I don’t know what, and neither does anyone else. So we wait for Ms. Patel to speak with her driver and the police.”
Ms. Patel was already calling the driver back. She spoke in clipped questions, writing down answers as they came. Gabriel remained near the wall, jaw set. Luca didn’t move again.
The driver reported that the two cars had followed Gabriel for several blocks. One had dropped back when the driver changed lanes; the other had stayed behind. He had not seen a weapon or anyone get out. He could not confirm who was inside. He had pulled into a staffed gas station and called for assistance.
“Is Gabriel still moving?” I asked.
“No,” Ms. Patel said after another quick call. “He’s staying inside with the attendant until officers arrive.”
It wasn’t safety. It was a pause in the danger, which was sometimes all anyone could get. Ms. Patel forwarded the location to police and told the driver not to approach the cars. Gabriel reached for his coat, then stopped when she gave him a look.
“You’re staying here until we know more,” she said.
“I’m not a client.”
“You’re a witness who just described his part in a six-year-old cover-up. You can wait ten minutes.”
He looked to Luca.
Luca said nothing. This time, he didn’t turn his silence into an order.
The answer from Elena’s intermediary came while Ms. Patel was still trying to reach the officers. The attorney had passed along my request. Elena would agree to a short meeting, provided Luca came without security and Nina was free to leave. Ms. Patel could attend as a witness, but Elena wanted the final say on the location.
“I’ll go,” Luca said.
“I haven’t agreed yet,” I reminded him.
“I know. Do you want to?”
I looked at the evidence log, the photograph, the careful handwriting warning him away. Then I looked at Luca. Fear was still there, but he was finally letting it wait for an answer.
“Yes,” I said. “If it’s public, and we can leave whenever we want.”
Ms. Patel replied to the intermediary with those conditions. We waited.
Then my phone buzzed.
A message had arrived through the lawyer’s contact. The first line was an address.
I read it once, then again.
May you like
The second line was shorter.
Silas already knows this location.
